There’s A Little Detail That I Didn’t Notice About “the Blue Spirit” When I First Watched It.

there’s a little detail that i didn’t notice about “the blue spirit” when i first watched it. when zuko returns to his ship after his misadventures at ponhuai, avatar-less and honorless and still puzzling over aang’s speech and having made an enemy of zhao and probably severely concussed, iroh is there on deck.

music night happened the previous night. and yet it’s morning when zuko returns, and iroh is still playing the tsungi horn on deck.

iroh waited up all night for zuko to come back.

There’s A Little Detail That I Didn’t Notice About “the Blue Spirit” When I First Watched It.

it’s such a small detail, but speaks volumes about their relationship. iroh not only allows zuko to sneak out in order to free the avatar in order to preserve his chance at regaining his honor, iroh actually subtly encorages zuko to free aang from ponhuai, even though he clearly knows that there’s every possibilty that zuko will be caught by zhao and iroh will not be able to save him.

as the guardian of a teenager, iroh’s influence over zuko is limited. iroh must allow zuko the freedom to chase after the destiny he thinks he wants, iroh cannot always protect zuko or keep him out of danger, iroh cannot even demonstrate affection to zuko in the way he would clearly like to because zuko is too hurt and guarded to be able to accept it from him -

- but iroh can wait up for him.

iroh can sit up all night, just to make sure that zuko gets home safely.

and it is such a striking element of their relationship, because I waited up all night for you becomes the unspoken love language by which they communicate caring and affection for each other.

iroh waits all night for zuko to return safely from ponhuai stronghold. iroh stays up while zuko sleeps on the ferry and waits up for zuko to return home from his date with jin. iroh sits up all night watching over zuko when he is sick and feverish.

and it’s not one-sided, because zuko waits up for iroh.

zuko waits up all night watching over an injured iroh after azula blasts him with blue fire. zuko sits up all night waiting for iroh to wake up when they reunite at the white lotus camp.

and this gesture becomes so important to zuko that it even becomes the way he demonstrates caring and concern for the members of the gaang. zuko waits up all night in appa’s saddle, knowing that sokka is planning a rescue mission. zuko waits up all night for katara to wake, knowing she needs to confront her own deeply-felt anger before she can understand and let go of it.

and this even is the gesture by which aang first demonstrates friendship to zuko. after zuko is knocked out by an arrow to his blue spirit mask, aang sits up with zuko for the rest of the night until zuko wakes up, just to make sure zuko is all right.

and the concept of sitting up all night for you is such a poignant contrast to zuko’s memory of his mother, who vanished out his life in the middle of the night, waking him up for a last goodbye.

it’s pretty clear that iroh sitting up all night with a sick child was far from an unusual occasion. i think it was probably really important for zuko to be shown, again and again and again, that he has someone who will be there when morning comes.

one parent left zuko in the night - but one parent will always wait up for him to come home.

Some of my Atla headcanons nobody asked for part 6:

Zuko adds a ton of spices to his meals, Sokka pretends he can stand it as well but we all know what his reaction to fire flakes was so it always ends the same

Aang bakes the best pies

Katara modified bloodbending so it could be used to heal instead of hurting people

Sokka was absolutely delighted when he noticed that Zuko is sarcastic as well, the rest of the Gaang in turn, were mortified

The Gaang must have had these hug competitions where the one who hugs the strongest is the winner and after finding out Zuko doesn't know what it is (I mean, he and Azula wouldn't really compete over hugging Ozai, come on) they compete on him (it's all just an excuse to hug him, really) and Zuko acts confused, but deep inside he feels nice

Toph has an unnamed job to sit on Zuko's council meetings as a Earth Kingdom's ambasador and feel who is lying to him, then after the meeting Zuko and Toph go into his office and make a list of people to fire or look out for

On Lu Ten's birthday Iroh always does the rituals like in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" but on the anniversary of his death he can't force himself to do pretty much anything, those days Zuko never fails to come to make sure uncle eats something, drinks some tea and then he just sit with him just so his uncle knows he's there for him

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dadriusstan

2 years ago

Camp Camp Ships I Used To Ship When I Rlly Liked Camp Camp

Camp camp ships I used to ship when I rlly liked camp camp

Fun story about the Masha thing, I spammed liked the tag and accidentally just spammed one singular person and then they reblogged smth I drew and its still an awesome thing that happened

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dadriusstan

2 years ago

zuko's type is terrorists with good hearts and I think that's beautiful

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dadriusstan

2 years ago

Fixed those hexside multitrack uniforms for ya 😩

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dadriusstan

2 years ago

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dadriusstan

2 years ago

After the war when Zuko tells everyone everything that happened when he went back to the Fire Nation, ‘Ty Lee needs help untangling her braid’ becomes everyone’s excuse for getting someone out of the room.

Katara wants to spend time with Aang but Sokka’s there? “Ty Lee needs help untangling her braid”

Sokka found a really big bug in his room and he needs Suki to get rid of it, but Aang won’t leave? “Ty Lee needs help untangling her braid”

One day Azula wants to talk to Zuko alone, but he’s with Ty Lee so Azula looks her dead in the eye and says “Ty Lee needs help untangling her braid”

Ty Lee just nods and says “sounds serious” and leaves

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dadriusstan

1 year ago

sorry if you've posted something like this before and i just can't find it, but how & when do you think suki &/ toph learn the full story of what happened to sokka in the north pole?

this is a great question because sokka is truly such a repressed little freak and so his friends (and girlfriend) will probably never learn the full story unless they explicitly dig for it. like, let’s think about what we know:

katara was there in the spirit oasis when yue became the moon spirit. she saw aang go koizilla mode, she saw yue sacrifice herself, she saw yue become the moon and kiss sokka. i doubt she knows about what exactly was going on between yue and sokka before that moment, but after that, she has a pretty clear picture of the nature of their relationship. the only other person who witnessed it in full is iroh.

aang turned into koizilla before yue became the moon. he probably vaguely knows that she’s the moon spirit, but i don’t think he really registers it, or understands why it matters to sokka. he seems downright confused the few times sokka talks about her, so presumably katara never told him about their relationship.

zuko knows that sokka’s first girlfriend turned into the moon. technically, he was also there that night, but i don’t think he was paying attention to anything other than capturing aang and beating zhao’s ass. so he actually has more information than aang does, because he’s actually aware that sokka considered her his girlfriend (although i would contest that claim, if anything sokka was yue’s mistress), so that’s like. something.

suki knows that “something happened at the north pole” and he failed to protect someone he cared about. she does immediately connect the dots and realize that a girl he liked died and he failed to save her. but she doesn’t know that she was the princess or that she became the moon spirit until watching that play on ember island. at which point sokka gets really mad that she dares to tease him about it, and she gets mad that he’s refusing to talk about it (or she playfully pretends to be jealous? unclear). either way sokka clearly thinks he’s opened up enough and has no need to further discuss it with her.

toph just straight up has no clue about any of that. if katara wouldn’t tell aang, she certainly wouldn’t tell toph, and sokka obviously isn’t telling anyone. although perhaps at some point zuko is like “yeah, sokka’s ex girlfriend the moon, everyone knows about her” and toph, aang, and suki are just like WHAT. why did he tell this to YOU of all people 😭😭

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dadriusstan

2 years ago